This survey was designed to examine economic, social, and
psychological adaptation of Cuban and Haitian refugees to American
society. Cuban (those arriving from the port of Mariel) or Haitian
immigrants aged 18 to 60 who arrived in the United States in 1980 or
after and settled in designated areas in South Florida were interviewed
in 1983 and 1984, with a follow-up interview being conducted in 1986
and 1987. The first interview elicited background information on the
two refugee samples and established baseline data on their situations
and attitudes shortly after their arrival in the United States. The
follow-up interview was designed to gauge changes in respondents'
socioeconomic situations, social relations, ethnic identities, and
attitudes. Major demographic variables include marital status, number
of children, education, present and prior occupations, date and
community of birth, prior residency in the United States, and religious
practices. Respondents were also asked about their reasons for coming
to the United States, plans to change residency, perceptions of
discrimination in the United States, and aspirations concerning future
occupations, salary, education, and opportunities to reach their goals.
The follow-up interview expanded upon or recorded changes in these
areas and also added items on perception of problems in the United
States, ethnicity of social relationships and neighborhood,
satisfaction with living in the United States, plans to return to their
homeland, languages spoken, read, and listened to, whether residence
was owned or rented, and whether the respondent had become a United
States citizen.

This survey was designed to examine economic, social, and
psychological adaptation of Cuban and Haitian refugees to American
society. Cuban (those arriving from the port of Mariel) or Haitian
immigrants aged 18 to 60 who arrived in the United States in 1980 or
after and settled in designated areas in South Florida were interviewed
in 1983 and 1984, with a follow-up interview being conducted in 1986
and 1987. The first interview elicited background information on the
two refugee samples and established baseline data on their situations
and attitudes shortly after their arrival in the United States. The
follow-up interview was designed to gauge changes in respondents'
socioeconomic situations, social relations, ethnic identities, and
attitudes. Major demographic variables include marital status, number
of children, education, present and prior occupations, date and
community of birth, prior residency in the United States, and religious
practices. Respondents were also asked about their reasons for coming
to the United States, plans to change residency, perceptions of
discrimination in the United States, and aspirations concerning future
occupations, salary, education, and opportunities to reach their goals.
The follow-up interview expanded upon or recorded changes in these
areas and also added items on perception of problems in the United
States, ethnicity of social relationships and neighborhood,
satisfaction with living in the United States, plans to return to their
homeland, languages spoken, read, and listened to, whether residence
was owned or rented, and whether the respondent had become a United
States citizen.

Access Notes

One or more data files in this study are set up in a non-standard format, such as card image format. Users
may need help converting these files before they can be used for analysis.

Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions.
Please log in so we can determine if you are with a member institution and have
access to these data files.

Study Description

Citation

Portes, Alejandro. Adaptation Process of Cuban (Mariel) and Haitian Refugees in South Florida, 1983-1987. ICPSR09750-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1997. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09750.v1

Universe:
Cuban immigrants (those arriving from the port city of
Mariel) aged 18 to 60 who arrived in the United States in 1980 or
after, living in households in the Florida cities of Miami, Miami
Beach, Hialeah, and unincorporated Dade County divisions, and Haitian
immigrants aged 18 to 60 who arrived in the United States in 1980 or
after, living in households in the Florida cities of Miami and Fort
Lauderdale and the town of Belle Glade.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

The codebook for this collection is in
Spanish.

The codebook and data collection instrument are provided
in a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.

Methodology

Sample:
Stratified multistage area samples.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1993-02-12

Version History:

2006-03-30 File CB9750.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

1997-12-19 The multi-part data definition statements have been
consolidated into single SAS and SPSS data definition statements files
for each data file and the documentation was converted to a PDF file.